


Day 1. Poison | The House on the Hill

by steadycoffeeflow (Salimity)



Series: Inktober 2018 [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Body Horror, Inktober 2018, Oh right lack of soul, One Shot Collection, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 05:43:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16717537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salimity/pseuds/steadycoffeeflow
Summary: The cryptid and ghost hunting crew are looking for their next challenge to face in a decaying Victorian on the outskirts of Detroit: deviants.





	Day 1. Poison | The House on the Hill

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive, I get very nervous about posting new works and even though these technically were live on my Tumblr, there seems to be a mental disconnect between publishing there and here.

 

“They say that these halls are teeming with countless deviants, having escaped from their cruel owners’ torment years ago. Even now, they roam, seeking to take their torment out on unsuspecting humans - sinking their poisonous teeth into-”

“Venomous.”

Zack straightened from his posed crouch, staring at Ivan and the camera. “What?”

“Venomous. If they were poisonous, they’d only be harmful if we ate them. Which, well, with thirium-”

“Really, dude?” Aaron threw his beanie at Ivan for interrupting.

Ivan bristled, lowering the camera. “What? You want to be wrong about something even a child could pick up on?”

“We’re not eating androids, dude, that’s fucking-”

Zach cut them both off with a shout. “Whatever. Enough. Still rolling?” Ivan nodded with a sigh. “Then we’ll take it from the top.” Zach returned to his crouch. This time he used venomous, Aaron throwing a ‘happy now’ look at Ivan. Which, yeah. Ivan  _ was _ as happy as he could be, given the situation.

They were ghost hunters. Cryptid chasers. And deviants were neither of those things. Deviants, and every risk surrounding them from the government, the hunters and the deviants themselves, were dangerous. And  _ very _ real. And no matter how many jokes Zach cracked or reassurances President Warren gave, Ivan  _ knew _ they were wrong.

Deviants were still out there. Numbers dwindling, for sure, but very much present.

And the house Zack had found for them to investigate? Definitely looked like it would house a couple of runaway androids looking just to lay low. There was a reaching black wrought iron gate in the front, flanked by crumbling brick towers. Windows were boarded up, especially on the ground floor, but some on the second were just cracked and outright missing. Blackness oozed out from those, held back only by the dimming light of twilight. The roof was caving in several areas, at some point black tarp used as an attempt for repairs. But something had stopped that halfway through.

Likely the riots.

Zach had said that the owner had left during the android revolt. He’d cracked up something more for the cameras, some story about how this place used to be for runaway androids and how the military had stormed in, destroying all of them in a single night. He was actually hopeful that there would be android ghosts, something that had been the topic of a several previous videos and podcast interviews with ‘specialists’. Not a topic Ivan was keen on exploring further.

Yet here he stood, slinking in through the creaking bars of the gate.

Ivan’s fingers trembled as he lowered the camera, hoping that would hide his unease from Aaron who was relentless in his teasing. Zach began to walk up the steps, Ivan silently thankful they were solid and cement.

Before Ivan could ascend and get some good shots of the exterior, Aaron shouted.

It was genuine shock, not a ploy. “Dude! Guys wait the fuck up - this is a fucking body.”

“What?” Zach said, breathless, flying back down the steps past Ivan.

Ivan was trembling as he made sure the camera was off.

“Holy shit, here too,” Aaron said, kicking back some leaves.

“Oh God, that’s a hand.”

Ivan kept a foot on the step. “Zach. How did you say you found out about this place again?”

“Some freaky online chat. Said this was where deviants came to be free.” Zach sounded like he was about to puke, leaning over what was definitely a human arm. “Turn the camera on this, quick,” Zach said, gesturing.

Ivan obeyed, looking back up at the house a moment. He caught movement in the blackness, something more than imaginary swirls of living darkness. But he didn’t say anything. It was just more motivation to keep them here, out in the open yard, prolonging the moment that they did enter.

But enter they did.

Procedure dictated they set up a center to observe cameras and equipment from. Ivan was sent to go set these tripods up throughout the building, as he was the tech guy, while Aaron and Zach filmed a few more shots in front of a tripod and tested lighting.

The foyer was large, the living room sprawling out to their left. There was a piano under a canvas there, along with clutter along the fireplaces. Pathways lead around into what was presumably the kitchen and stairs curved both upward and downward.

Ivan’s heart sank. He really didn’t want to go in that basement. He didn’t know what was down there, and he wasn’t a fan of unpredictable variables.

Sure enough, something he jokingly called a ‘bad feeling’ descended to sit on his shoulders as he went down the steps, using only the camera’s dim light to guide him. The hall was broken up by open stall doors that Ivan didn’t have a heart to even glance into. He’d sense something within, if anything worthwhile was within. The hall lead to a kind of center Ivan  _ didn’t _ want to see. A dismantled maintenance rig had been thrown into the corner. Computers and equipment had been shattered, as if with great fists and weapons.

And, in the center of the room, a pit.

It drew Ivan’s gaze to it, a siren of a new sort. Its song was quiet and oppressive, unescapable even as he surveyed the equipment, trying to keep himself from doing what he knew he had a duty to check.

Whether anyone was alive in that hole. Sustained only on hope and prayers to a false, ear-less god.

Ivan knelt by the edge of the hole, lowering a fiber optic cable with night-vision into the darkness. As it sunk slowly into the pit, Ivan kept trying to discern what secrets the blackness held. And, when it finally relented, he began to keen softly, on something kin to instinct.

Broken limbs emerged in the grey-green light, fingers reaching up to twist toward freedom emerged on his screen. Faces, eyeless and mouths twisted open in silent screams, stared at the walls of the well. It was Poe’s Pit, and Ivan felt immediately than a Pendulum was going to pitch him forward into the horror within that dark hole. Felt it so suddenly and violently he had to wrench to the side, crying out as he fell to the floor.

How many were down there? Countless. Too many. He wasn’t going to look again. However they’d gotten down there had been violent. No piece was whole. Plastic-alloy was cracked, spider-webbed and shattered. Internal tubings and metal coverings that once carried miraculous thirium were exposed to the cold night.

Ivan couldn’t stand it anymore. Eyes closed for as long as he dared, he pulled the camera back up, his mind convinced the wire was heavier being pulled up than during its descent. It came up empty, clanging on the dusty floorboards, simply recording its surroundings without life nor comment.

When he reappeared upstairs, neither Aaron or Zack noticed how rattled he was. Meant he was hiding it well. Suppressing it.

Nothing down there was alive. Hadn’t been for months, if they were lucky. But Ivan had seen something upstairs, no mistaking that. He turned the corner and began to ascend. “Cameras set up in the basement. Weird stalls down there. Might be worth something. Checking out the upstairs,” he called.

“Affirmative,” Zack replied from the living room.

Indeed there was someone alive in the house, as Ivan found in one of the derelict studies.

It was a girl. Her eyes were dying sunlight, her fingers curled into metal claws. Useless wings fluttered nervously on her back, disturbed by her synthetic-trembling and ghosting air. “You’re-” her voice cracked and chittered, no longer possibly human.

Ivan lurched, wheezing. “Sh. Shh.” He turned off the camera, swearing and fumbling for effect before dropping it. Could blame it on damage and being spooked. Aaron would buy that.

The girl whimpered, and Ivan regretted making the noise. She pulled her wings over her face. They were shredded to useless ribbons. Her fingers - nails - no. Claws, tugged on the tattered remains as she ran through them.

“Hey. Hey now.” Ivan dropped to his knee. He was shaking quite badly now, but not out of terror of the girl.  _ For _ her. His worst fears were confirmed. “We’re not here to hurt you. I’m… I’m not.” His mouth felt dry and tongue lifeless.

The girl curled up tighter. “Not a hunter?” she croaked, all static.

Ivan stopped himself from joking - ‘Not that kind.’ - because he knew what she was talking about. Worse than any monster they sought. Eyes of steel-fire that haunted Ivan in ways spirits and invented human-horrors never did.

So, Ivan shook his head and made himself even smaller, leaning back into the bit of light filtering in from the hallway.

“What’s your name?” he whispered as she began to uncoil, bit by bit.

Her sun-forges darted from the corner to him to the doorway. Ivan took the hint and shifted, slow, to give her an out if she wanted it. That was enough. She scrambled, just to be closer to the door, and she was across from him now. Closer, but apparently feeling bolder too.

In the light he could see the toll isolation had taken from her. Half of her had been scalped, pins stuck into the skull. Either someone had tried removing them, or had grown bored halfway through the task as it was clearly unfinished. Ivan didn’t want to know which. Her skin was no longer lustrous, but revealed the greying exo-structure beneath. And the terror. Her face was utterly warped by sheer, ceaseless terror that likely seized her every night. Every visitor. And worse, he’d never seen one up close that was this young.

Just a girl.

Ivan felt like he was going to break down into hysterics.

“My name?” Her voice creaked, a whispered screech. “I’ve been given many names.”

“Is there one you liked best?”

“What’s your name?” the girl chittered, twitching forward in a moment of erratic energy.

Ivan remained still, voice clamped down in his throat, if only because he was so afraid either Zach or Aaron were going to discover them. “Ivan. I’m called Ivan.”

“I liked Alice best,” Alice whispered.

“Well, Alice,” Ivan breathed. “How would you like for me to get you out of here?”

Alice shook her head, then fixed her sun-forged eyes out into the hall. Her wings twitched in her hair. Oh rA9 - would anyone he knew even take her? They were understanding, some deviants themselves, but there were limits.

Suddenly, Alice retreated back into the dark corner, weightless and without human clumsiness. A moment later, Ivan’s walkie hooked on his belt sprang to life. Zack. “Hey, dude, you’ve been quiet. We thought we heard something. You find anything?”

Ivan snatched the device. “No. I dropped the damned camera though. Trying to get it to work.”

“Damn,” the walkie beeped. “Okay, come on down to Command. We’ll take a look at it. Let’s get tripods set up everywhere else, yeah?”

“Got it, over,” Ivan mumbled.

Alice couldn’t hide her sun-forged gaze, even as the darkness blanketed her trembling limbs. Ivan stood, taking the camera with him. “I’ll make sure they don’t find you. Avoid the cameras. And I’ll help you in the morning. Do you agree?”

The girl thought it over, calculating in ways no young human girls every could. Then, nearly imperceptible in the dark, movement Ivan could only detect by the shift of her eyes, the girl nodded.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is post-bad ending. Where Kara never escaped Zlatko. But Luther never forgot how Alice fought for Kara, and that was the spark the rest of the deviants needed. So as Markus lead a violent revolution, Zlatko’s creations revolted against him too, and for a few hours they savored freedom. Just a few hours.
> 
> Oh, and Ivan definitely has a lot of secrets.
> 
> This wasn’t pleasant. Happy horrors?


End file.
